Gor - Witness Of Gor Part 41

"May I remove my arms from my sides?" she asked.

"No," he said.

She continued to stand in the center of the cage, her arms at her sides. The cord was still taut between his hand and the latch.

"We have been until now indulgent with you," he said. "But you have abused our lenience. If you should dare again to attempt to interfere with the possible functioning of the cage you will find yourself within it as though you might be a slave girl. You will be shackled within it, naked, and with your head shaved. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," she said.

"You may remove your hands from your sides," he said.

Swiftly, gratefully, she seized the bars, putting her arms about them.

It seemed she scarcely dared to stand on the floor of the cage, that const.i.tuting, too, its gate.

"You are gloveless," he said. "Your hands have been stripped."

"Yes, sir," she said.

"And your feet have been stripped," he said.

"Yes, sir," she said.

"And your face, too, as you doubtless realize," said he, "might be stripped, your features revealed to all and sundry."

"Yes, sir," she said.

"And you realize that your body, too, might be stripped," he said, "utterly."

"Yes, sir," she said.

"You understand all this?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," she moaned.

"Be good," he said to her.

"Yes," she whispered.

"Yes, what?" asked he.

"Yes, sir," she said.

He went then again to the wheel, at the wall, and, turning the crank, began to raise the cage.

She moaned. As the cage rose the various ropes, and the cord extending to the latch, uncoiled from their respective places. And still there were many coils left. He now raised the cage to a point much higher than it had been at first. It hung now, swinging on its chain, but a foot or two below the lofty vaulted ceiling. The torch hardly reached so high.

If the latch were sprung now she would plunge perhaps twenty yards before striking the surface of the pool.

"Sir!" called the free woman, from high above. "Sir! Please, sir!"

There was a ring to her voice, from the stone of the chamber.

The pit master looked up at the cage. The brunet slave lifted the torch a little higher.

As the demonstration, or whatever it might have been, for the benefit of the free woman, and perhaps, too, for my benefit, seemed to have been concluded, I knelt.

Indeed, it was hard to stand. I was shaken. I was trembling. Too, of course, in the presence of a free person, or persons, this is an appropriate, and common, posture for slaves. When a free person enters a room, unless we are serving another, or something of such a sort, we commonly kneel. Even if we are naked in the furs, we will commonly kneel, perhaps then merely to be thrown back upon them.

And so, unbidden, I knelt, a slave.

"How progress negotiations pertinent to my ransom?" she called down.

"I do not even know if there are such negotiations," he said.

"What?" she cried.

"I have no information pertaining to such," said he.

"Surely I have not been forgotten!" she cried.

"I do not know," said he.

"Surely negotiations proceed!" she exclaimed.

"Perhaps," he said.

"In this very city!" she said.

"No," said he. "Such negotiations, if there are such, would be conducted elsewhere, perhaps even thousands of pasangs away." This was I gathered, a great distance.

"Is it not known that I am here?" she begged.

"No," said he. "It is not known that you are here."

"How long must I stay here?" called the free woman.

"I do not know," said he. "Perhaps for years, perhaps forever."

The free woman, far above us, cried out with dismay. I heard the bars shaken. I heard her weeping.

I put my head down, swiftly, for I was now illuminated by the torch.

"Stand," said he.

I struggled to my feet, as quickly as I could. If one knows what is wise for one, one obeys the men of this world instantly, and as perfectly as possible.

He took the rope which had bound my ankles and looped it about my bound wrists, behind me.

"Bend over, at the waist," said he.

I did so, and he took the double strand of the rope looped about my wrists and brought it forward, between my legs, and then looped it up and, separating the strands, pa.s.sed one over my collar and then tied it to the other. In this fas.h.i.+on was my head held down. This is a not uncommon tie. It may also function to keep a kneeling girl's head down.

It is useful in learning deference. A similar tie, but one which immobilizes the slave, utilizes a short tether running from her bound ankles to the front of her collar. In these ways any pressure which might be exerted is exerted at the back of the neck. The front of the throat is, of course, as you are doubtless well aware, easily damaged and is to be carefully protected.

Similar precautions occur with several other forms of domestic animal, as well, not merely slaves. In my training, in the pens, I had occasionally been put in a choke collar. In it, I a.s.sure you that I obeyed instantly, obedient to its slightest pressure. On the other hand, such things, I think, should seldom, if ever, be used with slaves, particularly with female slaves, who tend to be beautiful, delicate and sensitive. Their use, I think, if they are used at all, should be reserved for fierce animals, such as the six-legged beasts I had seen, or perhaps for powerful warriors, or brawny, recalcitrant male slaves in the quarries or mines, captives or animals whose control may require such fierce devices. We do not need them! We know who is master. Our leash training, I a.s.sure you, may be accomplished readily with the common leash and collar, and a whip or switch. Indeed, I believe it can be more quickly and efficiently completed, as, less terrified of our lives, except to the extent that we might be found displeasing, we are, in a normal leash and collar, freer to concentrate our attention more fully on our lessons. If you are concerned with such things, do not fear. The whip or switch, I a.s.sure you, gives you more than ample control over us.

"Oh!" I said, for he had seized the rope running from my hands, tied behind my back, to the front of my collar, and, by means of it, threw me forcefully, stumbling, toward the pa.s.sageway.

Within it I stopped, gasping. He and the slave were still behind me, on the walkway about the retaining wall. I could tell their position from the torchlight. I could no longer see the cage, suspended at the top of the chamber.

"May I speak, Master?" asked the slave with the torch.

"Yes," said he.

"Do you think her ransom will be paid?" she asked, "Let us hope so, for her sake," said he, "for I have not found her pleasing."

"Yes, Master," she said.

He then entered the pa.s.sageway, shambling within, followed by the beautiful brunette, holding the torch.

Her hair was long and loose. Not even a string had been given to her to dress it. It flowed about her shoulders, and behind her even to the small of her back. I envied her such hair. I had no doubt she would bring a high price. Was the coinage of beautiful women so plentiful here, in this city of raiders and warriors, I wondered, that even specimens such as she, such gems as she, who might be the centerpiece of a collection elsewhere, who might be brought to the block at the climax of an auction, labored here in the darknesses beneath the city as though she might be the lowest of slaves, subservient in a gloomy labyrinth supervised by a monster. But she could not be the lowest of slaves for I was surely lower than she. My ears were even pierced, which was, it seemed, a matter of great moment on this world. Too, I need not pity her too much, nor with fear and loathing bemoan the uniqueness of her fate, for the monster to whom she addressed the t.i.tle "Master" was none other than that to which my own service and deference were due. I began, bent over, to tremble in terror. What manner of place was this? How could it be that my hands were tied behind my back, how could it be that I could not straighten up, that my head was held down, how could it be that there was a collar on my neck! How far away were the malls!

But, yet, too, how vanished here were the confusions, the anomie, the pretenses, the trivialities, the meaninglessnesses, the nonrealities of my former life! In this very real place, on this far world, I found myself, for the first time in my life, very real. I was now something quite real. No longer was there doubt about my existence or my meaning. No, that was all behind me. I was now something quite real, as unimportant as it might be. I now had an ident.i.ty, as lowly as it might be. It was as clear, certain, inflexible, and undeniable as the collar on my neck.

The monster, or whatever it might have been, entered the pa.s.sage, the slave behind him. He paused at a panel set in the stone, unlocked it, opened it, and revealed several levers, one of which he moved. Lines of bars emerged from the walls about the pool and, diagonally, descended, fitting into sockets in the retaining wall. This sealed off the area of the pool. He moved a second lever, and I saw bars descend, closing our pa.s.sage. From the sound I thought that other pa.s.sages might have been sealed, as well. I could not see from where I was. As there were several levers it seemed possible that pa.s.sages might be sealed off selectively, or, perhaps, as I thought might be the case now, at the same time. The panel box was perhaps a master control for the adjacent pa.s.sages. If all the pa.s.sages were sealed off, and the side bars engaged, as they were now, that would isolate the walkway. I could still see the walkway beyond the bars in the torchlight. Another lever was depressed. I did not, at the time, understand its function, but, in a moment or two, its effect had become clear. It must have opened some access between the pool and the walkway, for I heard a scratching and sniffing and then saw, to my horror, on the other side of the bars of the pa.s.sage gate, reflected in the torchlight, the blazing eyes of one of the large rodentlike creatures. There were other bodies, too, behind it. I saw snouts pressed against the bars. These things then might, if one wished, be introduced into various pa.s.sages, depending on the opening and shutting of the gates. I also learned, later, that access to nesting areas was similarly provided. This was, of course, but one area in the "pits," of many different sorts of areas, and, I might mention, neither the best nor the worst.

They const.i.tute almost a city beneath a city. I think regiments might lie concealed within them, and I have little doubt they could, pa.s.sage by pa.s.sage, be tenaciously defended. I would come to know certain portions of them very well, but in many portions I would not be permitted. I was, after all, a slave.

"Precede us," said the pit master.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Turn left here," he would say, "and right, there, and now left again,"

and so on.

I was soon bewildered and lost, but, nude, head down and bound, I must precede them.

"Harta!" said he. "Faster!"

I hurried, even more, as I could.

Mostly I could see little but the floor of the pa.s.sage at my feet, and the shadows, my own before me, and his, a misshapen, gliding thing, half on the floor, half on the wall, to the right of mine.

"Left here," he would say. "Right here!"

"Yes Master!" I would cry.

I was aware, too, as we pa.s.sed them, of gates here and there, some barred, beyond which I could see the darkness of a further corridor, and some of plain iron, secured with bolts and padlocks, leading perhaps, too, to further pa.s.sages. Sometimes I trod not on stone but on perforated plate or grillwork.

What, if anything, or of what depth, might lie beneath most such platings or grillwork I did not know.

Beneath one such flooring, however, far below, I heard moving water. Beneath another I thought I heard, far off, a sort of roaring. I did not know the cause of the sound. It may have been that of wind or water, oddly magnified and distorted in the tunnels, or, perhaps, that of some beast or beasts.

"Hold!" said the monster behind me, sharply.

Instantly I stopped.

I screamed!

From either side of the pa.s.sage, with a swift, loud, rattling sound, there had suddenly sprung forth a set of sharpened metal projections.

The closest of these was only inches from me.

I sank faintly to my knees, sick, unable to stand.

"On your feet," I heard.

I struggled to my feet. I could see the torchlight reflected on the points.

"In the pits," said he, "there are numerous such devices. Some you will learn. Others you will be kept ignorant of, even within pa.s.sages with which you will be familiar. Will they be set, or not? It will be in your interests to confine your movements to prescribed routes at specified times. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Master," I said.

"It is well that you obeyed promptly," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said. "Thank you, Master."

We are, of course, trained to instant obedience. The value of such training, of course, is easy to see in matters as obvious as that recently noted. What may not be as immediately obvious is its similar value in avoiding what may be even greater dangers, such as displeasing the master.

We are not first here, at least women such as I. It is the men, they, who are the masters.

He went to the side of the wall, as I could see from the shadow, but I could not detect what he did. The points receded into the walls.

"Precede us," he said.

"Yes, Master," I said.

"Harta! Harta!"

"Yes, Master," I wept.

Sometimes, too, we crossed chasmlike gaps in the pa.s.sages. We did this on narrow, metal bridges.

These bridges were not such as the earlier "bridge," that which had led toward the surface of the turret, or tower, which had been little more than a flat rail. These bridges, while frightening, were considerably less harrowing. They must have ranged from twelve to eighteen inches in width. In the torchlight I picked my way carefully across them. I did not daily, for fear of the monster behind me. I feared him more than the bridge. The bridges were locked in place on pegs. For one possessing the means, they could be freed and drawn away, to one side or the other, or even plunged into the opening below. I did not know how deep these openings were.

Given the narrowness of the bridges a single man, armed, could have defended them against several foes, for they could approach him only singly. The monster behind me, and the lovely slave with the torch, crossed them easily. I was from Earth, however, and was uneasy on such pa.s.sages, as routine or secure they might have been for those of this world.